Going into day 15, this will be my only article today, unless I get a second wind. Yesterday was even hotter than forecast. Today looks to be the same. I am wrung out.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:05 (average 5:02). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Bill Moyers: Here in the richest country on earth, 50 million of us — one in six Americans — go hungry. More than a third of them are children. And yet Congress can’t pass a Farm Bill because our representatives continue to fight over how many billions to slash from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps. The debate is filled with tired clichés about freeloaders undeserving of government help, living large at the expense of honest, hardworking taxpayers. But a new documentary, A Place at the Table, paints a truer picture of America’s poor.

Like most Republican plans that steal from the poor, this one would cost taxpayers more than the dollars Republicans would steal to give to the 1%.

In a Capitol Hill press conference, Gohmert referred to the Supreme Court justices who voted in favor of striking down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as “the five new holy quintets.”

“For them — I don’t know what kind of cloistered walls this court has been behind,” he opined. “They were not aware that the most wise man in history, Solomon, said there’s nothing new under the sun. And this isn’t new, and it’s been tried over and over. And it’s usually tried at the end of a great civilization.”

…

“Go Go Goose-step” should check his facts. The man he calls “the most wise man in history” and used to support marriage between one man and one woman just happened to have 300 wives and 700 concubines. What InsaniTEA!

From Think Progress: President Obama’s speech about climate change at Georgetown University on Tuesday laid out a comprehensive plan to deal with what ClimateProgress editor Joe Romm called “the moral urgency of cutting carbon pollution.” Not surprisingly, the President’s words have fallen on deaf ears on the Republican side of the aisle in the House of Representatives.

Today, less than a month after it was introduced, the House passed H.R. 2231, the Offshore Energy and Jobs Act, by a vote of 235 to 186. The bill reads like Big Oil’s Christmas list. It would open virtually all of the U.S. Atlantic coast, the Pacific coast off Southern California, and much of Alaska’s offshore space to new drilling; require the Obama administration to create a new Five-Year Plan for offshore operations; and generally perpetuate an energy agenda driven by climate deniers.

As much as you may want to bitch about Obama’s environmental policy, and I do it too, this is the alternative. The notion that one is as bad as the other is a total lie.

Cartoon:

This will also be the fate of the Tea Parties, if Republicans successfully establish their desired totalitarian regime of one-party Republican rule, in which elections exist only for show. These storm troopers will be expendable, just as those were.

Bill Moyers ~ I hope they all go the way of that other greedy person named Marie, who said "Let them eat cake."

Crooks and Liars ~ Goose-Step Gohmert didn't know King Solomon's history from the Bible because he probably never read it.

Think Progress ~ As all ??good?? RepublicanTs know from their un-scientific research, there is no climate change and we don't have to worry about the environment. We just have to keep the BigOil companies happy by making them richer.

Cartton ~ A sad day in history. I was just reading about it last night.

We cannot allow the teabaggers & the g o p pukes to run roughshod on voting rights of the citizens of USA
in the next election in 2014 and beyond. What we are now seeing the complete list of voters that they are going to discriminate against. Do you think the g o p held house of representatives is going to step in and
pass legislation for the Voting Rights Act…

KRISTI JACOBSON: Well, I think it's also important to look at how many corporations and agribusinesses are collecting subsidies out of the same government bill, the farm bill.

Well, yeah, and I think that there is an ethos in Congress right now that assisting those individuals who need help via the food stamp program or WIC or school meals is big government and is going to put us into debt. But providing subsidies to large agribusinesses and big corporations is just business as usual. …

When I listened to this part near the end, I immediately thought of Rep S Fincher (R- TN) who called for a $20 billion cut to SNAP over 10 years. But Fincher would probably be the first to sound off if his personal farm subsidy was cut. This from the Jacksonsun.com:

Fincher has received $3.48 million in federal farm subsidies since 1999, according to the Environmental Working Group, an environmental advocacy group that annually obtains figures from the Agriculture Department. In 2012, he received $70,574.

He ranks first among current members of Congress in receipt of such money, according to the group.

Further, in its deliberations over the farm bill, the House committee — with Fincher going along — voted to make the cut in food stamps while increasing crop insurance by $9 billion over 10 years.

And isn't it amusing that funding for crop insurance is being increased. But what is the reason for failed crops? Some of it is due to climate change which of course the Republican/Teabaggers deny even exists!

Personally, I think the entire Congress should have to live on a food stamps equivalent budget, not for a week, but for a month. No exceptions, no dinners with lobbyists or constituents etc etc. Set them all up with a pre-programme health check (height, weight, basic blood tests etc) and then check them again after the month. Have them record their feelings (probably very difficult for Republican/Teabaggers who don't have a heart), energy levels etc. As noted from Congressman James McGovern (D – Massachusetts) after doing this for 1 week:

REP JAMES MCGOVERN in A Place at the Table: I lived on a food stamp diet for a week along with Jo Ann Emerson from Missouri. We did so because we thought that the food stamp benefit was inadequate. Most of my colleagues had no idea that the average food stamp benefit was $3 a day.

I had my budget and I went to a supermarket and it took me an awful long time because you have to add up every penny and it has to last you for a week. And so I did it and I will tell you I, I was tired, I was cranky because I couldn’t drink coffee because coffee was too expensive. I mean there are people who are living on that food stamp allocation. And you really can’t. For us it was an exercise that ended in a week. For millions of other people in this country that’s their way of life; every day is a struggle just to eat.

Crooks and Liars — Goh-merde is just another piece of Republican/Teabagger merde that you want to shake from your shoe as you walk through the barnyard! InsaniTea indeed!

Think Progress — Please tell me that this piece of shit has to get through the Senate and past the POTUS's desk before becoming law! I think you can count on Canada suing the US and any oil company involved if there is a spill that affects Canadian shores and/or territory, providing Harper doesn't roll over and play dead.

Cartoon — Like Patty, I recently was reading about the Night of the Long Knives. The Republicans won't stop though at dispatching the Teabaggers, they'll take it as far as they need to, including any other opponents.

Good for Rep. McGovern. I am so so sick of hearing about the free loaders living on the dole. Our congress is the real free loader. Most of them become millionaires after they are elected and their benefits far exceed anything a moderate person would give them. I worked in the Food Stamp Program for two years. We had to make home visits in those days. I was dirt poor, both my husband and I were still in school at the time, but what I saw on those home visits horrified me. I had no idea such poverty existed. It is worse now than it was then.

Disclaimer

It is not our intent to violate anyone's proprietary rights. All material here is free for non-commercial use with attribution. If you feel we have violated your property, please send an email, identifying your property and it's location here, and we will remove it. Thank you.